


Edge of Seventeen

by shortystylee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 404: Kylo Ren not found, A good amount of John Hughes references, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben is kind of a hopeless romantic, Best Friends, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Rey the instigator, So so fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 22:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18508744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shortystylee/pseuds/shortystylee
Summary: When Rey’s family forgets her birthday, again, Ben decides to try and take her mind off of it. Because he’s a good friend, her best friend, but also because of the feelings he’s been keeping secret for years. Nothing ever seems to go exactly as planned for Ben, but sometimes, maybe that’s for the best.





	Edge of Seventeen

**10:02pm, Thursday, April 11th, 2019**

**Woodside Hills Subdivision**

**Backseat of a 1987 Plymouth Voyager**

Rey’s hands are in his hair, her thighs bracketing his, keeping him firmly in place against the fabric bench seat in the third row of his van. 

Not that he wants to be anywhere else. Ever again. 

Not when she keeps trying to push herself closer. Not when she’s kissing him, urgently. 

And she keeps kissing him. 

How did this even happen? 

How did he end up in the van, making out with Rey, who he’s loved since forever, reduced to jelly as she moves away from his mouth to suck at his neck?

We’re gonna need to back up a bit for that answer. 

XxXxX

**Earlier, that same day.**

Of course, it happened again. 

It hadn’t last year, so he’d almost forgotten that it  _ could _ happen. 

Everything had gone really well at school. Rose, Paige, and Finn had driven to school early, well before any other students, save for those with early morning swim team practice, arrived, and decorated Rey’s locker with just about every birthday-themed decoration that Party City sold. She showed up to their lunch table followed closely by a half dozen brightly colored mylar balloons, their strings tied together with a  paperweight so that a custodian didn’t have to fish them out of the rafters by fourth period. Balloons that  _ someone  _ ordered for her from the spirit station, that sort of school store that the business classes ran. 

That  _ someone _ was him, of course. 

He also  _ maybe _ paid a few show choir kids to serenade her with Oasis’ Wonderwall between second and third hour. 

They didn’t have eighth hour together, but were partners in seventh hour chemistry lab, and she’d been in high spirits when they parted after class, Ben going towards the B-Wing of the school for history and Rey heading to C-Wing for CAD design. The day’s little celebrations in school were just the start for her birthday - it fell on a Thursday this year, so they weren’t doing anything that night, but Poe and the twins had been busy cooking up plans for the weekend. They hadn’t told Rey, or anyone else, what the plans were, but Poe had a reputation for going out of his way for everyone’s birthdays. 

Rey was still even flying high when he drove her home, like he did every single day since he got his license. When she got out of the van and walked across the lawn to her house’s garage, she seemed fine, yelling back that she may text him later about their chem assignment. 

Which is why, when his phone started to ring - like, actually legit ring - at just after 8 that evening, he was surprised that not only was it Rey, but that she was upset. 

Her parents had forgotten her birthday. Again. 

Okay, not her parents. Her real parents, the ones he vaguely remembered meeting once or twice in kindergarten, when their whole class would stand in line by the flagpole to get picked up, he’s certain they would never forget their daughter’s birthday. But they were gone, almost twelve years now, a horrible car crash caused by a semi truck and a overtired driver. His own mom had been the public prosecutor, but he didn’t know that until years afterwards, when he finally was able to understand what her job actually was. Instead of going into the system, Rey bounced between various aunts and uncles and distant relatives until she wound up at the house next to his - her mom’s cousin, or her great uncle… whoever it was they were far enough removed from Rey that there wasn’t a set term for their relationship. They weren’t necessarily neglectful, at least not in the ways you could call child protective services for. They always provided food, clothing, shelter, spending money, and a lack of supervision that most their age would’ve relished, but they had a tendency to somehow forget about her birthdays, school events, volleyball games - all those things that she didn’t want to admit were really important to her.

Last year had been different. Maybe it was because she’d turned sixteen and it’s supposed to be a memorable birthday, if teen movies were to be believed. If teen movies could be believed, her workaholic guardians had forgotten her birthday Sixteen Candles style at least five times now between the end of elementary school and now, junior year. 

Ben wanted to follow that John Hughesian analogy further and put himself in the Jake Ryan role, wanted to sit on a tabletop and finally,  _ finally, _ kiss her. 

But Ben knows, he’s no Jake Ryan. Not even close. The closest one in their group is maybe Poe, but even he misses the mark - no queer characters in the Brat Pack. He’d like to think he’s better off than The Geek in Sixteen Candles. Not nearly enough of a badass to be John Bender, but maybe he could settle for Duckie from Pretty in Pink - the best friend who doesn’t get the girl in the end.

_ Tangent, _ Ben thought.  _ Back on track. _ So he thought of her, alone, in that giant house next door, and knew he had to do something.

“You wanna go for a drive?” He offered. At least he could try to get her mind off it. He looked at his watch again, 8:13pm. Dairy Queen was definitely still open. Gas for the van was at least cheap, since it took diesel, and he’d moved the drum set and the bass amp out yesterday. 

Five minutes later, he hears a screen door rattle, and from the driver’s seat, he looks up to see her jogging across her front lawn. She has on the same outfit as she had that day to school, dark wash skinny jeans and grey low-top Converse, except now she had on a navy blue hoodie that he knew was the one from last year’s state of Illinois Robotics meet. 

The second she’d agreed and they’d ended the call, he bolted out of his bedroom and down the stairs, grabbing onto the stair railing every few feet to keep him from falling. 

“Mom, I’m going out with Rey!” Ben shouted down the foyer towards the kitchen, shoving his feet into his shoes without bothering to untie them. 

“What?” His mom’s voice sounds startled, and excited, which is when he realized what he said.

Going out with Rey.  _ Dumbass _ . 

“Not like that, mom, Christ’s sake.”  _ She thinks that’s how I’d announce I was dating Rey? Shit. I’d yell it so loud everyone in the Midwest would know.  _ He has a vision of himself holding up an old boombox above his head, the volume on full blast as the words  _ Ben Solo is dating Rey Jackson _ blare out of the speakers on repeat. 

She opens the passenger door to the van and slips inside, closing the door softly. Rey helped fix that same door when he first bought the van last year, that and a handful of other issues it had. He reaches up to the gear stick and throws it in reverse, backing down his driveway. 

“Ice cream?”

She nods in agreement and hooks her iPhone up to the USB cord attached to the radio - which she also installed - quickly putting on some background music as he drives them towards the Dairy Queen.

It’s a warm evening, one of the first evenings they’ve had that’s been warm enough to comfortably sit outside and enjoy your ice cream, provided you were at least wearing long pants and a hoodie. Which meant that when they arrived, Dairy Queen was packed with people from the surrounding neighborhoods and what looked like an entire youth soccer team celebrating a win. He parked on a side street a block over, glad not to have to try and fit the Voyager into a spot in the miniscule DQ parking lot. 

Ben would always be amazed at how he and Rey could read each other - they didn’t need to even ask if they were going to hang out there once they got their order.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Ben said, as they took a step forward in line. Only one person was ahead of them now. “For after.”

She doesn't get a chance to ask what he’s got planned for them, the worker hands the person in front of them a Peanut Buster Parfait, and then as soon as they step up, Rey’s rattling off both their orders - a s’mores Blizzard for her, and a Reese’s peanut butter cup for him, exactly what he’d planned on getting. It’s just his order at Dairy Queen, and though some little spot in his mind, the logical place he uses sometimes, knows that Rey probably also has the preferences of all their friends  _ and _ his parents memorized, it still makes him feel special when she doesn’t need to ask. He pays, since it was his idea, and she doesn’t try to argue. 

“Alright, what’s your grand plan then?” Rey finally asks when they’re back at the van. “For the record, I’m perfectly happy just driving around, listening to music, and demolishing this Blizzard.”

“It’s been a while since we had a good game of Who Lives There.”

She beams at him, and he looks over just in time to notice, her smile bigger than when she had her first bite of her s’mores Blizzard as they walked back to where he’d parked. “Oh, that  _ is _ a great idea. I am so in.”

It’s not the most sophisticated of games, not with it being one that their minds dreamt up back in elementary school. There’s no winners or losers, no long list of rules. It was quite simple - all you did was pick a house and make up grandiose stories about who might live there. It passed the time well while they were on the school bus or being driven to youth soccer leagues. 

He had been a little apprehensive to suggest it, since it’d been so long since they’d done this and not just turned on some music or spent their time complaining about their draconian trig teacher, but Rey seems genuinely excited about the game. 

So he pulled away from the curb and drove. Drove aimlessly around the winding suburban neighborhood streets to look at houses, and every mile or half mile Rey would yell for him to stop. He pulls to the curb in front of the first stop, and they let their eyes adjust so they can see the house she’d chosen.

A brown brick tri-level with a line of yew bushes flanking the front porch, a basketball hoop on the driveway with more abandoned basketballs than necessary, and a discarded Big Wheel in the middle of the front lawn. 

She asks him first, and admittedly, his imagination is a bit more rusty than when they played this last. The only real use it gets anymore is imagining that the little quirks of their relationship, those small actions, meant something. 

The times spent sitting almost too close on the Dameron’s basement couch, shoved together because everyone else also maintained it was comfy and wanted to sit on it. Imagining a world where they’d create room because she’d sit in his lap, mirroring Poe and Finn at the other end, and he could easily run his fingers down her arm, whisper in her ear all his sarcastic comments about whatever movie or show they’re watching. 

High school football games - that, mind you, he only went to because Finn was the kicker - when Rey would grab his hand nervously during big plays, or jump and hug him when they won, her cheers ringing loudly in his ear. 

Or, like tonight. He didn't have to ask, he knew she called him first, and that she wouldn’t call anyone else. If he didn’t answer, she wouldn’t go through her contacts list and find another person.

But that was them, Rey and Ben. He doubts their friends even suspected his feelings. Those types of things were normal for them, having been inseparable since kindergarten. 

“A basketball team,” he decides, then takes another spoonful of ice cream. “A family team, they have six kids. Five are on the basketball team.”

“Okay, obvious, due to the amount of basketballs. What about the odd kid out? Team manager? Coach?”

“Nah, he’s too young, and besides, he’s not interested. That’s his Big Wheel. He’s a budding Nascar driver. Or maybe Tour de France. He’s got a few years to decide before he really needs to ramp up his training.”

Rey smiles and accepts the new story about this particular house.  _ Good job, _ she mumbles, mouth full of ice cream as he starts to drive away.

Next up - a symmetrical white colonial that has a porch with a series of large columns, and so many manicured shrubs in various shapes or spirals. The driveway led to a detached garage, a shiny black Escalade in front of it.

Ben asks Rey this time, and she answers quickly. “Easy. Edward Scissorhands. I mean, those bushes. I’m surprised none are actually shaped like zoo animals.” Ben looks at her like he wants more details, so she adds, “He doesn’t drive the Cadillac himself, due to the whole scissors-for-hands thing. But he has a driver, and sits in the back, very careful about the leather seats.”

After almost an hour, their Blizzards are gone and Ben wonders if it's the sugar high that made their stories more ridiculous as time passed. They’ve made stories about astronauts and sailors, the sailors from some huge monstrosity of a three-story house with an anchor on its lawn, which Rey pointed out was a sorority house, the Greek letters delta and gamma clear above the front door. _ I don’t understand why they can’t be a sorority full of female sailors, _ Ben had pointed out. Other houses had beekeepers or flag salesmen, dog breeders or folk-punk acoustic jam bands with a penchant for tambourine solos. 

They come to the end of a side street and pull out onto a main road, and he feels Rey’s hand on his arm a moment later. She squeezes lightly, but he notices, willing himself to keep it cool and not jerk the steering wheel.

“There,” she suggests, pointing at a side road ahead on the right with her other hand. “Let’s try there.” 

“The houses aren’t even done,” he rebukes, but he flicks on the turn signal and drives into the under construction subdivision. Woodside Hills, the sign reads. Which Ben finds ironic, as this neighborhood is neither beside the woods or any hills. The homes are all in various states of construction, save for two massive homes on either side of the street at the entrance, that must be models for showing would-be homebuyers. They’re almost the exact same, the only differences from the outside looking like the choice between a two or three car garage, and what looks like more room on the second story. Rey stares out the window, trying to decide, then points again. “Down here. Turnberry Circle.”

“What the fuck is a turnberry?” Ben asks as he signals out of habit, and she doesn’t have a good answer. 

“Hell if I know,” she shrugs. “I wonder if the turnberries taste like turnberries?” 

It’s a silly reference to Willy Wonka, but as Ben looks over, she’s got this wide smile on her face, so far removed from how she sounded on the phone call earlier, so he allows the cheesy joke. There’s only four houses in the cul-de-sac, though if it was in their regular neighborhood there’d probably be at least eight shoved in. 

“Who do you think lives here?” 

When she looks at him, there’s a mischievous gleam in her eyes that he knows well. “Let’s go find out.”

“What?” He starts to ask, but Rey’s already got the door open and is hopping out. She looks at him from the sidewalk, puzzled as to why he’s still in the van. 

He sighs and gets out of the van, closing the door softly as if there are people around to hear them. 

“I'm pretty sure this is breaking and entering,” he informs her as he walks towards the house on what probably will become a sidewalk. Or a flowerbed, who knows. 

“No, it’s not. How can you break and enter into a house without a door? Or walls.”

“Trespassing, then.”

“Ben, I know your mom’s a lawyer and all, but come on. Live a little. There’s no one around.” She gestures to the nothingness of the subdivision. “There’s not even anything to steal, unless you, like, want a sawhorse or something.”

She won’t let this go, and really, he isn’t sure why he is arguing. She’s right. No one is around, and it's not like the people buying or building these houses would have any reason to come here in the dark. 

When they get inside the frame, they start to walk around through what will become the various rooms. Off the entrance there’s a room that seems to be a kitchen, and on the other side a great room, it’s ceiling open to the floor above. But there’s plenty of other rooms that Ben can’t guess the purpose of.  _ Laundry room and a mud room? Pantry that’s bigger than his bedroom? Yup, this is my life, I’m officially jealous of a pantry.  _

“Alright, who do you think lives here?” Rey asks when they’ve made their way back to the entrance. For some reason, he gets an idea in his head, one he’d never thought of before. He looks over and sees her standing in what would be the doorway between the front foyer and the kitchen, and Ben walks around to the other side of the door, all the while feeling her eyes following him curiously.

“Hello dear, I’m home from my stressful job at the investment banking company.” He puts on his best haughty voice and pantomimes opening the front door. He was in all of one school play last year, and tries to pull on everything he learned in the drama department workshops that led up to it. He takes off his make-believe hat and puts it on the just as make-believe hat tree beside the door.

Rey instantly realizes what they’re doing, a smile broad across her face. He can’t tell now if she’s trying not to laugh, or if her housewife character is just very glad he’s home from work. “You must be tired, dear.” She takes a step closer and holds her arms out. For a second he thinks she’s going to hug him, but instead she keeps talking. “Let me take your coat for you.”

“How are our two-point-five kids and golden retriever?” he asks as he pretends to shrug off his coat. 

She breaks character for a second. “Two-point-five?” 

“We’re the epitome of upper middle class average. Go with it.” He voice is hushed, like he’s trying to whisper her lines to her. 

She flashes him a smile. “They’re great. Emma’s at piano practice 'til six, but the nanny will drop her off. I’ve already got dinner ready for you.” Ben follows her around the corner and she gestures towards where a stove might be. “Will you be able to make it to Bobby’s soccer game tomorrow?”

“What, no, of course not. I have…,” he pauses, “Important work-meeting businessman things to do.” He’s reaching for the words but doesn’t care. “I know I’ve missed them all.”

“That’s fine, honey bear,” Rey replies, her voice a saccharine sweet tone. A smile crosses his face at the pet name he knows she’d never use with a real partner. “I’ll just spend tomorrow night with the ladies rotary club, telling them how lovely our life is while I secretly pine over the guy who does our landscaping.”

And that’s when they know it’s gone a bit too far. Gotten… weird. All the fake lives they make up are always so ostentatious or out of left field, and somehow this one has gotten really real. 

He realizes that Rey has realized the same thing at the same time as him by the way she goes abruptly quiet, turns her gaze towards the unfinished floor. She walks past him with a sigh and sits down on the stairs. He doesn't know what to say, so he sits down on the same stair as her. 

“We won’t turn into those people, will we?” Rey finally asks. “Unhappy? Striving for what we think should make us content instead of what actually will?”

_ Fuck _ . He’d meant to take her out and keep her mind off her family forgetting her birthday, and they managed to create an unhappily married stereotype of a couple, who apparently miss their kid’s soccer games.

But it’s made up. It’s not set in stone, it’s not even some psychic prediction. 

“What?” He turns to her. In the little light afforded to them by the moon, he’s able to make out her big eyes looking off into nowhere. “No, Rey. No. I will not turn into some sort of suburban nightmare. It won’t happen to either of us.”

“But how do you know? Soon, we will all be in college, different ones, trying to get degrees and then jobs that will just land us in houses like --”

“Stop. Stand up,” he interrupts, as he stands as he speaks. She doesn’t listen right away so he nods his chin upwards. She finally does. “Go, um, go stand by the door. Pretend that you just got home.”

XxXxX

She’s standing, because he asked, but she still doesn’t know what he’s planning. 

“Ben, we already did this.” Instead of telling her to come on the door again verbally, he puts his hands on her waist and physically moves her to the other side of the non-existent door.  _ Where the shit did that move come from? _ She’s startled enough that she allows him to move her, but really, with his hands where they are she’d let him do all sorts of things. 

He backs up into the ‘kitchen’ and nods to her, like it's time to start. She shrugs and rolls her eyes, but she reaches out and opens the pretend door.

_ Alright, Solo. Time to pull out the big guns. Show me what the plan is.  _

Ben walks towards her, wiping his hands on what she assumes is a kitchen towel, maybe even an apron.  _ Okay, stop. The idea of Ben Solo in an apron is not unappealing. _ It’s actually very appealing. 

“Rey! You’re home!” He exclaims, his voice filled with excitement. “How was your first day at the super awesome aerospace engineering firm? Did you meet the team you’ll be managing?”

Oh.  _ Oh. _ Now she thinks she knows what he’s doing.  _ Two can play at this game.  _

“Amazing! How did your research go for your next article for The Atlantic?” She’s rewarded with a smile that sends fuzzy little sparks through her abdomen. 

“Better than I’d hoped. It’ll be ready to go to the copy editor soon enough. More importantly, I made your favorite for us for dinner.”

_ Us.  _

“You did?” 

“Yep.” He turns and walks into the kitchen, and she follows behind him. “Spaghetti with my grandma’s arrabiata sauce - handmade, by the way - and with lots of those tiny meatballs you love. Garlic bread should be done soon too.” 

_ Ugh, goddamn him, _ Rey thinks, watching him bend down to check the pretend oven. 

“You didn’t have to do all of this.”

“I wanted to. Plus, it’s Thursday, which means my parents are watching Hannah. I thought we could do something nice.”

_ We.  _

And…

Hannah? Not only has he created a make-believe daughter, but she is at his parents for the night? So they can do something… nice? And what’s nice? Is it spaghetti dinner nice, or like, romantic night-in sex sort of nice? 

And now she’s thinking about sex. Which is normal. She’s thinking about sex with Ben Solo, which, well, let’s be honest, is also normal for her. 

_ Fucking hell.  _

This is a lot to take in, if it means anything close to what she wants it to. Rey wants it to mean Ben likes her, the same way she likes him, in that all-consuming way you like someone you’ve known for years. When it’s so, so gradual, and then hits you like a semi full of bricks. 

Maybe it’s time to do something about it. About the proverbial elephant in the room of their friendship, that just keeps growing bigger. Soon, it’ll be all elephant and no room for Ben or Rey. 

She  _ could _ lose her best friend, if she says something. But, on the other hand... the way he’s been using  _ us _ and  _ we _ , and his hands at her waist — they’d felt so good there, like that’s where they were supposed to be.

She breaks character. “Would you really want that, Ben? That future, with me.”

XxXxX

Let’s go get ice cream, he’d said. It’ll be great, he’d said.  _ This is not where I thought this would go. _

But when she asks questions like that, doubt rife in her voice, he can’t let her think for a second that he doesn’t want it. 

“Shit, Rey.  _ Yes, _ ” he adds, emphatically, like she should know. Because she  _ should _ . Who else could it possibly be? Her eyebrows raise and it makes his confidence falter. “Please don’t get freaked out. I mean, yes, I would, but… not now, not junior year of high school.”

“You’ve… you’ve thought about marrying me?”

“Most of this I made up on the fly, tonight, the jobs and stuff but…” His voice trails off, he doesn’t want to say it. Not because it isn’t true, but because of how true it is. Aren’t high school boy fantasies supposed to be about having sex under football bleachers or something? Not marrying the girl next door? His mother did always say he was kind of a romantic.  _ I guess this is what she meant.  _

“But?”

“Yea, the thought’s crossed my mind.”

“I see.” She nods. Her gaze goes to her shoes, then lands right on his face. “We should get back to the van.”

_ Is… Is she just gonna leave it at that? _ He seriously just told Rey that he wants to marry her, wants a future with her. He expected some sort of reaction, anything, not just going back to the van to drive home. 

They’re silent as they walk out of the house and down the maybe-sidewalk maybe-flowerbed to the van on the curb, Ben a few steps behind Rey. 

He watches as Rey walks up to the van and… opens the sliding door. Ben stops in his tracks, confused, and watches as she ducks her head, steps in, and climbs in the back. He does the same, ducking a bit lower due to his height. The main reason he bought a van was to lug all the instruments for his hardcore band, back and forth to the shows they played at skateparks or Knight of Columbus halls every other weekend or so. Because of that, the middle seat had been removed and stowed in his parents’ basement. 

When he looks towards the back, he sees Rey sitting on the bench seat, ankles crossed and hands in her lap, waiting. He has to crouch down to get back there, awkwardly shuffling until he’s at the bench seat, and sits down next to her.

“Rey—”

“Shush. I need to say this.” She scoots over and closes the gap he left between them. He looks down at where their thighs are touching. “I want those things too, Ben. All of them.” He thinks he must be dreaming, because it’s like he’s frozen, or all the breathe is out of him, and he can’t stop staring at his knees when he knows he should be looking at her. But then, there’s warm fingertips on his jawline, and Rey forces his gaze to her. “And just so that this is perfectly clear,” she continues, but then pauses. Her hand leaves his face for his shoulder, and he watches, slack jawed, as she shifts upward and throws a leg over him, straddling his lap. “I want those things with you.”

Alright, so. Ben’s been kissed before, and not just in the truth or dare, spin-the-bottle sense. He should know what to do. 

But Rey’s fingertips trailing from his shoulders, dipping across his collarbones and finding their way to the hairs at the nape of his neck? Her lips on his, soft and tentative and warm? It makes the neurons in his brain go haywire. 

It’s not until she pulls back a smidge, says his name gently, like a question, that he remembers himself. His hands are grasping the worn out fabric of the seat instead of her, which is just so wrong. He brings them to her hips, fingertips playing along the hem of her t-shirt and the waist of her jeans, as he pulls her in closer and kisses her, far less soft than her kiss, and not tentative in the slightest. It’s still an ambush of the senses for him, from the vanilla scent of her shampoo, the sweet taste of chocolate and marshmallow on her tongue, and oh, god - the feel of her roaming hands that seem to try to map out wherever they can reach.

Minutes later, he’s not sure how much time really passes, the alarm on his cellphone starts going off, high-pitched and angry, and Rey practically launches herself off Ben’s lap. 

“Hey, hey,” he reaches out to her, a hand going to her knee, rubbing little grabs his phone out of his pocket, swiping his finger across the screen to stop the alarm. “It’s just my alarm.”

She’s breathing heavy still and he tries not to fixate on the rise and fall of her chest. He fails. 

“Jesus Christ, Ben. Who has an alarm set for this time of night?”

“It’s my fifteen minutes to curfew alarm,” he explains.

“Oh.” In the little bit of light his phone gives off, he can see her face fall. “So you’re saying we don’t have anymore time tonight?”

“Not unless you want me to get grounded when I get home, and have to miss all your birthday stuff on Saturday.”

“Damn.” He doesn’t notice the movement in the dark, but her hand reaches out and covers his. “We’ll just have to pick up where we left off later.”

_ Later. _ As in, this is going to happen again. And again, and again, and again, if he has any say about it. It might be Rey’s birthday, but it sure as hell feels like it’s his too. 

He leans in then and kisses her, because it’s something he’s allowed to do now. He can feel her smiling against his lips just before he pulls back. “Definitely later.”

Ben drives them back to their houses, and at first glance, everything about the drive is the same: Ben curses at slow drivers under his breath, Rey plugs her phone into the USB and chooses Weezer’s Pinkerton album, they both sing along off-key. But what’s out of place makes all the difference - their hands come together as soon as Ben starts driving away, fingers lacing together like it’s the most natural thing. 

Before he knows it, they’re in his driveway and hopping out of the van, despite how much both would rather never leave it again. They come together again in front of the van, Ben half-leaning, half-sitting on the hood to make him closer to Rey’s height, and she moves herself to stand between his legs. He looks over her shoulder then, just in time to see movement in the curtains. He knows it’s his parents, probably having rushed over to the living room picture window as soon as they heard the rumble of the van in the driveway. He also knows he’ll get twenty questions and an  _ I told you so _ from his mom, and a very inappropriate, painfully awkward conversation with his dad, but he can’t find it in himself to give a shit. 

His hands go to her hips and she takes the last few baby steps in closer.

“Ben, everyone can see --”

“Don’t care,” he cuts her off, bringing his lips to hers again. Her hands find their way around his neck, almost lazily, and he feels her melt into whatever space was left between their bodies. There’s so much that Ben already knows about her, after close to fifteen years of friendship, from her favorite foods to pet peeves, to hundreds of little quirks, but now? Now his express goal is to learn all the ways to make her breathless, how to earn her gasps and breathy sighs, what life will be like without this shared secret hanging between them. 

They don’t hear his front door open, but they do hear Han’s yells from the threshold.

“Get inside, kid, whole neighborhood don’t wanna watch you two.”

Rey’s laughter cuts through any of the tension Ben feels about getting interrupted, and she leans forward, her forehead against his shoulder. “One minute, dad,” he yells back, and sees his dad mouth the words  _ one minute _ before shutting the door. Ben lets out a sigh as soon as it clicks shut.

Rey pulls her head away once the door is closed, and looks up, eyes smiling mischievously - she’d always found his dad’s sense of humor far funnier than he ever did. “I should probably go,” he finally says. 

Her hands trail down Ben’s arms and she takes his hands. “Thank you, Ben. This night was the best birthday present ever.”

He grins. “I did actually buy you something, was just waiting to give it to you on Saturday. Does that mean you don’t want it?”

“I didn’t say  _ that. _ ” She squeezes his hands. “Night, Ben. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Rey goes up on her tiptoes then, pressing a quick kiss against his lips. Just as quickly, she lets go of his hands and turns, looking over her shoulder as she walks across the lawn. 

He knows he’ll see her tomorrow - he drives her to school everyday - but it’ll be different. A good different. The  _ best _ different. Because that last kiss she gave him, a simple goodnight kiss, it told him everything. It was that sort of kiss you always saw couples giving each other, like his parents, or even Finn and Poe when they’d part ways after lunch. It meant they were together, a couple, and that they could give each other quick, sweet kisses because they didn’t need to rush. Because he’ll have tomorrow, and the next day, and next day, as long as she’ll have him. 

 


End file.
